DEPT OF NO, NOT REALLY

All Middle and High Schools Across the U.S. to Receive DVDs of Steven Spielberg’s film as Part of Education Outreach

BURBANK, CALIF. (February 11, 2013)–Jim Berk, Chief Executive Officer of Participant Media announced today that, in conjunctionwith their upcoming Social Action Campaign, “Stand Tall: Live Like Lincoln,” kicking off on February 12, Steven Spielberg’s critically acclaimed film “Lincoln,” a DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox film, in association with Participant Media, will be distributed to all middle and high schools, both public and private, throughout the United States when the film becomes available on DVD.

Compiled and designed by Disney Educational Productions, the DVD package each school will receive includes an Educator’s Guide to help teachers engage in meaningful discussions and complete lesson plans relating to the significance of Abraham Lincoln’s leadership and the importance of that period in our nation’s history.

Speaking of the impetus for the educational outreach, director Steven Spielberg says, “As more and more people began to see the film, we received letters from teachers asking if it could be available in their classrooms. We realized that the educational value that ‘Lincoln’ could have was not only for the adult audiences—who have studied his life in history books—but for the young students in the classroom as well.

"They need to learn how our greatest President undermined his own famous words about 'government by the people' when he made the clandestine, solo decision to keep the peace-seeking Southern delegation out of Washington until after his pet legislation made it through. The people, speaking via their elected representatives, might have objected to such a move. Indeed, the film tells us that the people, speaking via their elected representatives, would have preferred to make peace. But what do the people know? 'The people' might have objected to Bush's torture policies, or Obama's drone attacks. They need to learn to trust the supreme executive power. Lincoln can help them to do that. Hey, it's Honest Abe!

"They also needed to see Tommy Lee Jones as super-abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, relaxing in bed with his black housemaid after the amendment passes. How else will they learn that if you really want to get a man fired up about a cause, you've got to give him some of that sweet, sweet loving? They need to know that the personal is political, and vise versa.”